May 8, 2008
A Beer Advances
The Samuel Adams LongShot contest is probably the most well-known homebrew contest in the United States amongst the general public, but amongst homebrewers, there’s one that dwarfs it.
The AHA National Homebrewing Competition is the granddaddy of them all. With likely more than 6,000 entrants nationwide, it’s roughly three times the size of LongShot, and thus instead of a 3-region competition, there are 10 regions. With a competition that size, they break it into a 1st round and 2nd round. Also, with the size of the competition, simply making it from the 1st to the 2nd round is a big thing.
I submitted the Rye Pale Ale and the Milk Stout. Given that the Rye had scored very highly in the two competitions I’ve entered it (finishing 1st and 2nd in its category), I was almost expecting it to place. But results were released today, and the Rye didn’t do a thing.
But the Milk Stout took 1st in its category*, beating out 40 other stouts. That means it’s definitely advancing to the second round, where the stakes get higher (and the competition gets tougher). It’s one step closer to one of the top honors in homebrewing, a medal from the AHA.
Going up against 20 or 30 of the best stouts in the US, I’m not going to say that I’ve got a lot of confidence that I can make it into the top 3. But I’m mighty happy to get a shot against them!
May 6, 2008
Apparently, I Don’t Exist
I found a site to check the commonality of names, and apparently, I don’t exist!
| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
|
Even worse, it finds that there are zero people with the last name Warbiany in the US!
Does this mean I can stop paying my taxes, since I don’t live here?
May 5, 2008
Cute Little Devil, Huh?
Wyatt is not short on personality. He’s quite a fun little kid, but he’s also inherited a strong will from Joanna and I.
Tonight, somehow he decided that sleeping just wasn’t in the cards. The normal routine is dinner, a little playtime, a bath and then sleep. Tonight we had a nice dinner out (and he got some nice minestrone soup), bathtime went well, and then sleeptime just didn’t happen. He wouldn’t settle down. Eventually we just had to set him in his crib and let him get to sleep on his own.
Well, after a bit of crying, he finally settled down. And I went in to check on him. This is the sleeping baby I found…
Daddy’s been known to fall asleep in positions like that, but that was mostly in college, and alcohol was involved. Wyatt must have just been a bit overtired!
May 1, 2008
My Ghettofied Brew Setup
For the size batches we’re doing (15 gallons), there’s usually a lot of equipment involved. Big welded stuff. Pumps. Fancy-looking burners capable of taking paint of the ceiling when lit at floor level.
You know, cool man shit. But USEFUL stuff, as manually moving 15 gallons of boiling wort from one location to another using muscle power is dangerous.
Well, we don’t have much of that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t brew good beer, it just makes it harder.
So I present our ghettofied brew setup!
The link takes you to a Kodak Gallery slideshow documenting the basic process of brewing, from start to finish. Enjoy!
April 24, 2008
BATF Doesn’t Like Beer Made In Weed
In the rural areas of Northern California, in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Shasta, lies a sleepy small town. In that town, however, lurks a menace. The town itself elicits laughs from degenerate drug users all over the nation. In fact, the town itself is a literal advertisement for drug use.
At least that’s what the BATF would have you believe:
The federal government has said no to Weed.
Or at least to the bottle caps of beer brewed at a popular local brewery in this small Siskiyou County town, which has a name that no doubt would have kept 1970s pot-smoking duo Cheech and Chong giggling.
Weed brewer Vaune Dillmann faces possible sanctions or fines from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau if he continues to brew and sell beer with bottle caps printed with the label “Try Legal Weed.”
You see, in the world of the government, there is no room for humor. After all, in a country of 300 million people, a few of those people are going to get the wrong idea. Might they believe that a beer company is suggesting that they stop drinking beer and start smoking pot? Maybe so.
And the BATF (actually, the TTB) believes it’s their place to save those people from their own idiocy, and at the same time ruin it for the rest of us.
Now, it’s clear to me that this is nothing more than a clever marketing tactic. As a homebrewer and beer connoisseur, I often see store shelves lined with a dizzying array of six-packs, and outside of word of mouth and places like beeradvocate.com, I have very little way to tell one brewery from another. What might convince me to try something new? Perhaps if it catches my eye for some reason, I might buy it.
The use of the town’s name may elicit a chuckle from a few potheads, but it’s hardly an advertisement by a brewery for a competing (and illegal) product. It’s made even more ridiculous by the fact that a competing (and well-known) brewery has a similar double-entendre in their name and advertising, but is allowed to proceed with their own labeling and advertising.
Dillmann, who says his bottle caps both promote his beers and the community in which he brews them, has appealed the decision.
After all, he said, the labels on his beers have a picture of the Weed arch and the city’s founding father, Abner Weed, on the label. Dillmann’s bottle caps also say a “A Friend in Weed is a Friend Indeed.”
“We’re dealing with a surname that’s been used for hundreds of years,” Dillmann said Monday.
The owner of the Mount Shasta Brewing Co. said he’s also outraged that his beer is being singled out for using a possible pot play on words when Anheuser-Busch has used “Bud” — another name for marijuana — to promote their Budweiser line of beers.
“What’s the difference here?” Dillmann said. “They sell Bud — we sell Weed.”
There is no difference, Mr. Dillman. Some bureaucrat has a stick up his butt and the power of the federal government behind him. You’re bearing the brunt of it. This is the way government works.
In a letter to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s administrator, Siskiyou County Supervisor Michael Kobseff said California tourism officials have identified Weed as the single most recognized name along I-5.
“Surely, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is not in the business of suppressing the ingenuity of a small business owner, (and) the community of Weed . . .,” Kobseff wrote.
Of course that’s not what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to find some way to apply their one-size-fits-all rules, which don’t allow any room for variation or common-sense, to a situation that requires variation and common sense. It’s not that they’ve got a problem with the town of Weed. It’s much simpler than that. Rules are rules, and you’re not following them.
This is government, folks. Petty, with no sense of humor and a complete inability to understand why we find them ridiculous. You either conform or you get pounded down, in a high-stakes game of bureaucratic whack-a-mole. As Washington called them “a fearful servant and a terrible master”, they’ve been spending a lot more time being the latter.
April 22, 2008
Back in Denver
I made it out to Chicago last week, but never had any good pictures to share. And after realizing that my “travel camera” is a steaming pile of a dog crap, I only managed to get one good picture from Denver. My wife keeps the nice new camera, but since it’s very large and bulky, I wouldn’t likely carry it around and use it when I’m on business. I think it’s time for me to buy a new camera, and I’ve got a few things I’d like in that camera:
1. Small/slim (fits in a pants pocket easily).
2. Good value (good pictures, but not overly expensive).
Any recommendations?
But luckily, the picture I did get happened to be of the entrance to my favorite beer bar:
April 13, 2008
Settling A Homebrew Beer Blogger Dispute
The homebrewing community is, by and large, a very helpful, generous, and kind group. They’re quick to help each other, always ready to offer advice, and enjoy the fraternity of “do-it-yourself” mentality that we all share.
So, when a few homebrewing bloggers got into a 90’s-style internet flame war, we knew this could not stand. Travis from CNYbrew.com is a homebrewer in New York. A Syracuse fan and a northerner, he’ll brave the elements to brew, even if it means dressing like a gay Eskimo. The Monday Night Brewery guys, Jonathan, Joel, and Jeff, met a few years ago in Bible study, and wish to help the beer-starved Southeast by opening their own brewery in Georgia within the next few years. Plus, they’re huge Bryan Adams fans, which makes Travis’ brokeback overalls seem far more normal. The flame war begun, with Travis intimating that MNB was its own grandpaw, and MNB suggesting that Travis simply can’t brew. There was only one way to settle this - man to man, mano a mano, cerveza a cerveza! A brew-off!
So they decided to send samples of their IPA to myself, and two other brewers. This is good, as I consider myself a connoisseur of IPA’s, and live in the mecca of the IPA, Southern California. So, two packages arrived, each containing two IPA’s from each brewer, and my brother-in-law and I took to the task of settling this dispute!
First, the intangibles. MNB sent two bottles of their beer with their custom labels, a very nice presentation. Travis sent his beer in two Saranac bottles that he had neglected to even remove the original label. MNB sent a few bottles of Terrapin Rye Pale Ale, one of the beers I missed from my time in Georgia (which I liked so much that I brew my own RyePA), along with a few Monday Night Brewery pint glasses. Of course, I am evaluating purely on the beer, so the bribes presentation is not a factor in judging.
Travis’ IPA:
Pours a pale gold color, with a strong head that persists for quite some time and leaves very nice lacing on the glass. This got me a bit excited, as the color was exactly what I want in an IPA. I took a few nice long whiff’s of the beer, and got very little hop aroma. What I did pick up was a slightly heavy ester & higher alcohol aroma, suggesting high fermentation temps. The mouthfeel was very thin, with low to moderate maltiness. Taste followed similarly, with a very thin body, mild bitterness, and little to no hop flavor/aroma. The thin body made the beer feel a bit “hollow”, but without a heavy hop aroma, there was little to make up for the light body. I don’t mind a light-bodied IPA, in fact I prefer it to be lighter and more crisp, but it didn’t have the “clean” dry taste or the in-your-face hop characteristic that I expect.
Pours an amber-reddish color, small head, but the head persists while drinking the beer. The aroma had a very mild hop character, but picked up more maltiness. No higher alcohols or heavy esters detected. In the mouthfeel, there was definitely more body, and more sweetness came through. I wouldn’t call this beer a “malt-bomb”, which is good, as an IPA should not be one, but the malt is prominent. Tastewise, there was a good balance between malt and bitterness, but the balance was more appropriate for an American Pale Ale than an IPA. The beer could be well served by additional bitterness and dry-hopping.
The Result:
I had already heard that Travis had conceded defeat, and the Canadian judge had awarded the win to MNB, and I thought that I might find this to be a runaway win. Instead, it was actually a very close match. Both beers would really have been improved with some dry-hopping, as they did have bitterness, but not the pungent hop aroma. I think the thin body and more harsh higher alcohol I detected in Travis’ brew would be considered a technical flaw, whereas my view of the MNB beer is that it was a good beer, but not a great IPA. But, the results were unanimous (okay, it was only myself and my brother-in-law*), and we also decide in favor of the boys from Atlanta. It was the cleaner technical beer, and in general was something that I’d be more likely to sit down and drink a few in an evening.
So when is round 2?
brewpoll.com linked with The Unrepentant Individual » Settling A Homebrew Beer Blogger Dispute...
April 10, 2008
The Speed Of Government
I’ve found something that the government does quickly. When you owe them taxes at this time of the year, they don’t waste time. I owed at the end of this year, and there was maybe a 3-4 day from the time we SENT the check and the day it cleared. That check cleared faster than giving it to a crackhead with a gambling problem…
…which is a lot like government, when you really think about it!
April 1, 2008
In 2014 — I Am OUTTA HERE!
Richard Branson is taking space tourism to the next level, with the help of Google.
For thousands of years,
the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world’s every last nook, cranny and subdivision.An invitation.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.
I’m so there!
I think I should file this one under “travel”, right?
March 31, 2008
Chalk Another One Up For South Swell
You know, I think when South Swell Brewing Co. becomes a reality, I’m well on the way to one solid recipe. The Rye Pale Ale has already taken one second-place medal at a brewing competition in San Diego.
When in Pittsburgh, I dropped off the Rye and the Light Belgian Ale for the TRASH Homebrewers competition. Judging occurred over the weekend, and I received my results today…
Rye Pale Ale — 1st Place in the American Pale Ale category
Light Belgian Ale — 3rd Place in the Belgian & French Ale category
As I’ve mentioned, I re-brewed a tweaked version of the Rye recently, and based on my experience, I’m going to go back to the original recipe. The second attempt was lacking body and could be improved. I’m not sure it’s 100% where I want, but the first iteration of the recipe was better than the second, so I will go back towards that.
The Light Belgian scored well in San Diego, and managed to actually place in this competition. I like the recipe, although may tweak it slightly. I do understand that a 4.5% beer brewed with an idea of being targeted at the slightly above-average beer drinker (not the true beer connoisseur) is not well suited to competition, especially in such a competitive category as a Belgian ale.
But I’m slowly laying the groundwork for recipes that I hope will one day be winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival or the World Beer Cup, not just local homebrew competitions!
March 29, 2008
Back In Cali… For A While This Time!
Well, the three-week whirlwind of travel has thankfully come to a close. As it stands, I have no travel currently scheduled, and all intents upon not going anywhere for at least 3 weeks.
Pennsylvania was a quick trip, and outside of the Vegas experience and picking up a few nice beers to bring home with me, largely not worth documenting in pictures.
Phoenix was a little bit more fun, got a chance to return to the Four Peaks Brewery, as well as an Irish Pub called Rula Bula. Both places are actually in Tempe, where our manufacturer’s rep have their offices.
Four Peaks Brewery
Four Peaks Beer List
Four Peaks Bar
Rula Bula Bar
Beers I brought back from PA and AZ. Left to right (Southern Tier IPA not pictured - i.e. already consumed)
Southern Tier Mike & Phin’s Extraordinary Ale, Southern Tier Raspberry Porter, Great Divide Titan IPA, Dogfish Head Raison D’Extra, Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, Breckenridge Agave Wheat, Magic Hat #9
(click on photo for a larger version)
I was very pleased with the Agave Wheat. As previously mentioned, I’ve brewed an agave wheat, and it was atrocious. This one is very tasty. First, they based it off a Hefeweizen style, while mine is an American Wheat. The Hefe uses a much more flavorful yeast, and that adds a lot of beneficial flavors to balance the agave. Mine was a very clean/neutral beer, so the agave overpowered it. In addition, I think they used a MUCH smaller proportion of agave in the recipe than I did, which also helps to keep them from having the same sort of failure that I did.
I’ve got another 3 lbs of agave, so I might just have to add it to a hefeweizen instead, in order to finish off that bottle.
March 24, 2008
Off To A Good Start
On my way out to Pittsburgh, I’m currently enjoying a 2-hour layover in Las Vegas.
I rarely carry much cash on me, and coming to this airport, I only had $2 in my wallet. My intent was to lose that $2 playing Wheel of Fortune, but my plans have gone awry. My first pull on the machine, I hit a spin for $20.
Good times… And I think I have the willpower to stop here, so I’ll call it a good start 
March 23, 2008
And Here We Go Again
As I mentioned late last week, the situation in Pennsylvania has deteriorated. I’m headed back there early tomorrow morning. It’s a “rifle shot” trip, and I’ll be coming back to California on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, I’ll then be headed out to Phoenix early Wednesday morning, coming back Thursday.
Fun times…
March 21, 2008
Back From Salt Lake City
Definitely an enjoyable trip. I’ve only been to SLC once previously, and that was at 6 AM one December day in 2000 driving through on a cross-country trip. Having driven through from the Midwest at the time, I was struck by the fact that it was my first real experience driving through the Rockies, and it was rather nice to see a city surrounded by snow-capped peaks. My return trip did not disappoint:
From my experience driving around, it appears to be a very interesting city. Visually it’s quite beautiful, and it seems like a city in a state of transition. It’s apparent that there are some older, poor sections of the city, but that business is moving in and salaries are increasing. Excepting the whole 4% beer thing (which is only true of bars/restaurants, the state-owned liquor stores can sell higher), it sounds like a very nice place to live. But, with the beer restrictions, I think I’d be headed to Denver instead!
We did end up making it out to a brewpub called Hoppers:
I had 4 beers (easy to do when they’re so weak). Three of them were fairly good. I had a pilsner, a hefeweizen, and a stout, all of which were good representations of the style, and cleanly-brewed. I also had a pale ale, which failed to impress. I am not even sure I can put my finger on what was wrong with it, but my coworker also found it lacking. I think there may have been too much of a Munich malt bill, and not enough Crystal malt, which is more typical of a pale. Added to that, it seemed to have enough bittering hops, but was lacking hop flavor/aroma. Either way, I was impressed. It just goes to show that you don’t need to make beers strong to make them tasty. I’ve had badly-brewed strong beers in brewpubs, and if I had a choice between a badly-brewed 6% ale and a well-brewed 4% ale, I’ll take the 4%.
The strangest thing I saw, though, was in the airport on my way back. Dressed as a business traveler, carrying only a boarding pass and a laptop, the lady at the security checkpoint directed me to the “Expert Lane”. I was in so much shock that I didn’t think to take a picture of it. SLC’s airport actually has a sign and screeners devoted to an expert security lane, for frequent travelers. This is very useful for me, as I regularly scan the people in front of me in line at the airport, to ensure I’m not behind any families or anyone who looks like a tourist or infrequent traveler. Those of us who spend a lot of time in airports are able to quickly get all of our bags / metal items / laptop / shoes / etc organized and through the x-ray rather quickly. Those who don’t know the rules or don’t do it often can slow the line down immensely. It appears that at least one airport understands this, and is trying to help out those of us that know our way around.
It’s nice to be home… Of course, the situation in PA hasn’t sufficiently improved, so I may be flying back there on Monday… Then coming back home Tuesday evening, only to fly out to Phoenix for Wed/Thurs… I think I’m going to have to use all my frequent-flyer miles and hotel points to take my wife somewhere nice, and soon!
March 18, 2008
Alabama One Step Closer To Beer Liberty
In the South, a trend over the past few years has been for states to “pop the cap”, or vote to end their restrictions limiting beer to 6% ABV. These states allow wine above that limit, as well as distilled alcohol far above that limit, but they kept the cap for years. Often it would be prefaced as a way to stop alcoholics from getting their fix easily, or to “protect our children”, despite the fact that most of the beers in that marketspace are expensive and strongly-flavored - not suited towards teenagers looking to get hammered.
Alabama, though, is still a holdout. A local group known as Free The Hops is intent on changing that. Their bill has recently passed the state House, and will soon be coming up in the Senate. This is a watershed moment for Alabama beer connoisseurs, who quite literally would make road trips to Atlanta or Tennessee to obtain the beers unavailable in their home state.
Congratulations to Alabama’s House for coming to their senses… At least a little bit.
If you listen to the debate, what sort of impression are you left with about both the supporters and the opponents?
Hat Tips: Punditry by the Pint (by way of The Agitator)
Next Page »
Well, they said that there are 13 people in the US with my name….
Comment by Lucy Stern — May 7, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
It would be interesting to know how the site compiles its list of names. Maybe we can zero in on it. You are employed, so it’s not the IRS or the SSA. Do you have a listed phone number? Maybe they use phone records. That would be a terrible source for something like this, but you never know.
Comment by Jeremy — May 8, 2008 @ 4:55 am
Jeremy,
They get their data from the census. Apparently a number of names (such as mine) are so uncommon that the census doesn’t even report their frequency of use.
Elsewhere on the site, they say that about 10% of both first and last names don’t appear on the site, and thus about 19% of visitors will experience the same fate I did.
Comment by Brad Warbiany — May 8, 2008 @ 12:18 pm